 I'm waiting to use a shark bottle opener that I'm very excited to give to someone in my life. I'm getting ready to wrap Christmas presents. I hate wrapping Christmas presents, but I love getting Christmas presents, which creates a problem. So I'm going to tackle this once and for all. I don't know if you can see behind me, but the presents kind of line up for quite a ways behind me. I've already gotten some of them done. I'm a pretty crafty artsy person, but I'm really bad at wrapping presents, but what matters is inside. So that's okay. So I'm going to go ahead and start wrapping presents while I chat with you guys. I am home alone today, which I think is a very good thing today because in the last video I released I talked about feeling a lot of depression and like having a very difficult time lately. First of all, thank you for your amazing responses. I really can't say enough how much I was blown away by what everyone said to me. There are so many responses that I screenshot it and I capped on my phone to refer back to in really dark moments. And so from the bottom of my heart, sincerely thank you. And I've been sitting here this morning watching Sorry for Your Loss, which is a Facebook Watch TV show. I didn't know that Facebook did TV shows now. That's kind of cool. And it's about a woman who has lost her husband. And so they talk a lot about grief. And yesterday I posted in an amputee support forum about what I was experiencing and how I was feeling like all of this depression a couple months after amputation, especially after getting my leg and just, you know, as anyone else had the same experience. And there were a lot of mixed responses. A lot of people who were like, hey, you should just be positive and get over it. And that response has never been helpful for me. Maybe it is for other people. But there are a lot of people who are really, really supportive and one response in particular stuck with me. And a lot of you guys echoed this and said that what you're experiencing might be tied to or triggered by grief and loss. Essentially, I lost a very important piece of myself. So I've been spending the morning trying to think about what I'm feeling through the lens of like grieving something, like grieving something you've lost. I know so many of you have probably had that experience of losing a loved one or losing something that really mattered in your life or going through something traumatic and feeling grief that comes along in the aftermath of that. And they mentioned in the show that Kula Ross stages of grief, which a lot of people and a lot of professionals have concluded don't really mean that much because grief is not a straight line. It's like just like a plate of spaghetti that's dropped in your life and you may start an anger and then you might go to acceptance the next day and then suddenly you're back in rage and maybe you go to bargaining the next day and it just, it's all over the place. And it's like you've just got this big cauldron of emotions and more stuff just keeps getting, you know, dropped into it and you never know what you're going to get the next day as you kind of go through grief and it's a weird, weird, exhausting process. I've been thinking about that and this morning, for instance, I had been getting ready to wrap presents and this is going to sound like a very petty story so just bear with me for a second. My husband brought everything down for me so I could get it done down here and they put it over in that corner. Now, well, I didn't know is that over in that corner, what I didn't know is that there was cap throughout back there, give me a bright guy, the floors were brown, it was brown, I should have thought. But I ended up like sort of sitting in it with my new pants, that was fun and then I also noticed that some of the presents had gotten in it and that was a little frustrating so I was like, oh, okay, whatever, no big deal, I'll just move everything over here and then I tried to like cut wrapping paper over here and that didn't work because it was on carpet and I was just like, this would be so much easier if I just had a freaking leg and if I could just freaking walk and put everything on the table like a normal person and I wanted to be mad at myself for having that thought because I was like, you know what, no, this is what life is right now. It's totally fine, like deal with it, it's fine if you're sitting on the floor like a child wrapping presents for people but then try to give myself space to feel that for just a second and be like, you know what, it's also okay to be pissed off for a second, it's also okay to be like, this is kind of aggravating and isn't how life was before and I kind of wish that things hadn't gone this way, I don't regret having this done, I am bothered by the fact that it had to get there and bothered by the fact that I was in so much pain that this had to happen and I'm frustrated that I can't just get up and walk that it's a process to do that and I find that if I can just sit for a second and let whatever emotion I am feeling simply be like just just be angry for a second without chastising myself for it or just be frustrated at something I feel is petty and then let it go and figure out the solution or be sad and cry to sad TV show and then maybe put on a happier one which I might do in a second I should wrap a present if I'm actually gonna wrap presents things go a lot easier and I get to a better place a lot faster this is a something I have learned over and over and over again as I have experienced grief and loss before in my life and I think if I can maybe learn to accept the fact that I am I've experienced loss recently and that's okay and the more I can accept where I am the faster I can move through it like the goal is not to move through it faster or maybe it shouldn't be maybe it is but I think that that is a healthier way of thinking about things than just yelling at myself internally for everything I'm feeling and for not being in a better place and for not having a better attitude and like all of that stuff so I wanted to say all of that on camera because I like talking to you guys and also because I know the holidays Christmas time Hanukkah the new year every other holiday that people celebrate around this time of year there's a lot of forced joy there's a lot of joviality I think that's a word and it can be really hard if you are dealing with grief and I am well aware of that not just from this year but for many years with other stuff and I wanted to take a moment today before we head into Christmas to say that if you are dealing with grief this year if you are dealing with loss this year I am really sorry I am so sorry for what you're feeling I'm so sorry that it's hard and it's okay to be feeling whatever you're feeling and I hope that there are moments you can take to let yourself feel that and that it will then pass that whatever that that intense negative emotion you're feeling can then go on its merry way that you can get to a better better place I know grief is exhausting and terrible and loss is the worst but I hope that you are hanging in there and that you are able to take some time for yourself and now I am going to return to wrapping shark bottle openers and other lovely gifts that I am very excited to give to people that I love with that I'm gonna sign off continue watching sad or maybe happy if I decide to change my mood here TV shows and wish you all a merry Christmas if that's something you celebrate or happy boxing day which I think is a day after Christmas right for my Canadian friends correct me if I'm wrong I might be totally wrong there but I'm sending lots of love to you and lots of happy holiday wishes and I'll talk to you soon bye quick side note aren't kids books just like the cutest like why don't we have adult books they're check full of adorable pictures like I feel like like I feel like I should make that a thing adult books are just full of words and words are really great pictures are so much better